At what point does a sexual experience turn from being "awkward" into assault? The conversation around sexual consent is louder than ever. We're told sexual assault is black and white. But what happens if, like me, you're confused about your own experiences? Could a written consent contract, like Harvey Weinstein's female lawyer recently suggested, have helped? This is what happened when I road tested a "consent kit" in real life...

I’m down to my underwear and lying on a bed with Alex*, a man I’ve been seeing for three weeks and am yet to sleep with. But we both know there’s only one way this date is ending.

I’m up for what’s coming next but first, I’ve got to do a bit of paperwork – a Consensual Sex Agreement contract, to be precise – to check I’m not misreading any of his signals and to assure him I feel the same way.

It’s a serious, passion-killing business and comes as part of a ‘consent kit’, which comprises a condom, two mints (so you can ‘stop and take a breather before deciding if you want to continue’) and a contract that urges both parties to state that they agree to sex. If that wasn’t suspect enough, the contract also encourages both parties to take a selfie holding the signed piece of paper – Instagramming optional.

The kits are available online for $2.99 (around £2, a bargain! Burn your sex life to the ground for less than a side of Nando’s spicy rice!) and come in a pocket-size pouch.

The Affirmative Consent Project have created kits to try and prevent sexual assaults occurring.

Antonio Petronzio

I’m sceptical. While these kits appear well-meaning and certainly initiate an important conversation, they also create an environment about as sexy as licking an envelope. Plus they raise the question: are the ethics of sex really so complex that we’re now resorting to covering our backs with a contract, lest we be accused – or accuse – of something sinister later down the line?

Still, I lean over the side of the bed and semi-discreetly fish out a consent kit from the bottom of my bag (I have five lurking down there and have mentally nicknamed them the Sex Bags of Doom; they tick away like libido-slaying time bombs). “Err… What are you doing?” Alex asks, holding up a condom he’s already retrieved from his wallet. And suddenly, I’m not so sure myself…

How did we reach peak consent confusion?

The statistics, especially those gleamed from university campuses, are, in a word, bleak. In 2018, a Student Room survey of over 4000 people found that 62% of respondents (both current pupils and graduates) had experienced sexual violence, as defined by Rape Crisis. Horrifically, 8% of female respondents said they had been raped while at university.

Over the past five years, the words ‘rape culture’ and ‘conscious consent’ started becoming commonplace, appearing everywhere from Twitter feeds to the Houses of Parliament. In an effort to educate students about sexual assault – both on and off campus – British universities started running consent workshops as part of a campaign called I Heart Consent (although attendance is not always compulsory). Cambridge University even hired a full-time sexual assault and harassment adviser.

"People in the entertainment field have been using consent contracts for years," she tells me.

In America, Alison Berke Morano is also trying to do her best to protect students. She's the woman behind the consent kits; a former political adviser who co-founded the Affirmative Consent Project in 2014, in the hope of building something positive out of depressing statistics. Alison was even asked by Obama to visit campuses across the country to discuss consent.

“The contracts were something we felt made perfect sense very early on. We also learned that the military and people in the entertainment field have been using consent contracts for years,” she told me. “The contract is a fun way to remind people that they really should be talking about what they’re getting into. I remember feeling pressured in college, but having no guidance – we need to change that.”

Consent isn’t something I was ever taught to discuss at school either; sex education was restricted largely to biology. Negotiating respect within relationships is something learnt off-curriculum and it doesn’t help that glamorous movie sex (read: the kind of sex we all feel we ought to be having) is always silent and seamless, with assumed consent.

zakalinkaShutterstock

But is a £2 consent kit the answer? Christina Hoff Sommers, author of The War Against Boys and outspoken critic, well-known for her views on contemporary feminism, calls people like Alison ‘meddlesome’. “A sex contract is not a solution; it’s a warning sign," Christina says. "They tell us the rape-culture crusade is spinning out of control. Contracts will not protect either party from an accusation – and they certainly won’t deter genuine predators. But they will cast an aura of fear and suspicion over intimacy.”

Sex doesn't always feel straightforward...

Ask around. Many of us have, at some point, felt uncomfortable during a sexual situation. We surveyed almost 2,000 Cosmopolitan readers and discovered 45% of you have felt pressured into having sex despite saying "no". And it gets murkier: 57% of these women didn’t know whether to consider the experience a sexual violation, a bad hook-up or something else entirely.

I’ve experienced times where I’ve felt uncertain about – even opposed to – what’s happening to my own body. But was it rape? I consider myself a smart, strong, empowered woman, but I’ve had times where I’ve gritted my teeth and stayed silent for an easier life. Especially at university.

Take bonfire night in 2013. I was 20-years-old, and after a bottle of warm rosé on the beach with a music producer called Jay*, I agree to split a taxi home with him. He invites himself in for a drink and again, I agree. We kiss, and he wants to go further – but I don’t.

"I remain silent and attempt to disconnect from what’s happening to me physically."

I push his hands away more than once, but he persists. Eventually, I stop protesting and let it happen, I almost feel I ‘owe him’ (for what, I’m not sure. His time? The wine?). Halfway through the act he spits on me, and still, I remain silent and attempt to disconnect from what’s happening to me physically by counting to the highest number I can think of. By the time it’s over, I've hit the hundreds.

The next morning I get dressed and, because of my limited experience with one-night stands, accept his behaviour as typical. I deal with it by chalking it up to a ‘learning curve’ and reframe it in my mind as a ‘funny’ story. I did fancy him, I thought, so it couldn't have been assault. Unpleasant at the time, sure, but hey – I tout the tale over drinks with friends, and Jay soon becomes a bit of a running joke among my circle: ‘The rapper who couldn’t spit any decent bars, but spat on me.’

I’m not unusual. I know dozens of others who’ve experienced similar nasty scenarios, with men who’d never consider themselves a sexual predator – and would be horrified at the thought of being of such a thing. But how do you differentiate between a ‘bad hook-up’ and actual rape or assault? And is it helpful to be categorising ourselves as victims? Are these scenarios, where men aren’t aware they’re overstepping the mark, a violation or a shitty part of growing up and exploring your sexuality and boundaries? And finally, could a consent contract help or hinder understanding a situation you feel uncertain about?

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“A victim could sign a contract and still go on to be sexually assaulted or raped. Although they aren’t legally binding, a victim might feel less able to seek support or report an attack to the police, for fear that a contract could work against them," says Katie Russell, the national spokesperson for Rape Crisis England & Wales. The law, too, is clear. If a consent form was presented as evidence, it would be considered in exactly the same way as if the accused said consent was given verbally.

Welcome to the school of consent

A week later, I find myself at Cambridge University just days before a new batch of freshers arrive. I’m here to discover more about consent workshops on campus, by joining a training session for older students-turned-facilitators, who are eager to learn how best to discuss and teach a concept as nebulous as consent.

“There’s an idea that women are either virgins or whores, and that men are purely sexually beings who, once aroused, are no longer in control – and we want to end that,” the women’s officer leading the session says. She goes on to explain that a lot of students are particularly confused about consent when alcohol comes into the picture. “They can find it hard to grasp that even if a person says yes to sex, they may not actually be capable of making that decision if they’re drunk.”

Discussing coerced sexual experiences during the session left me wondering something I’d never considered previously: If a person doesn't give an explicit, lit up in neon lights 'yes', is that automatically always rape? I don’t know if Jay intended to cause me harm or even realised how strongly opposed to the situation I was. But I do believe he should have known better. Perhaps a consent class would have made him aware that just because I stopped protesting, I hadn’t changed my mind. There was no 'yes', enthusiastic or otherwise. Some might read that incident and think the words ‘unpleasant’ and ‘misguided’ aren’t strong enough, yet all the others I can think of feel too strong. Is there a gap in the English language for describing that kind of sexual situation, or is it always black and white with no room for confusion?

According to the law, a "clear-cut case" of sexual assault would be a woman getting dragged off the street or scooped up from outside a club, and into the bushes; everybody understands that to be wrong and non-consensual sex. "It becomes more difficult to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that consent was the issue, particularly in instances where alcohol is involved or the two parties already know each other," a Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson says.

“If you’re beyond a certain level of intoxication, where you’re unable to think clearly for yourself, you are unable to give consent. When prosecuting we examine, ‘Did the suspect have reasonable belief that consent was being given for the correct reasons, for example free from pressure, emotional abuse or dependency (whether that be for love, drugs or alcohol), and capacity of mind?’" they added.

“The issue is that for too long we have blamed victims – usually women – for allowing themselves to be raped; and we have forgiven perpetrators – usually men – for acting on some kind of instinct from which they seemingly must be protected.

If one person does not consent to sexual activity – with the freedom and capacity to give that consent – and the other person doesn't reasonably believe there is consent, then it is an offence. It's our job to prove this in court."

Christina is also vocal on the questions the class raised for me: “This rape-culture panic does not empower women – it infantilises them. Young women are learning to think of themselves as fragile maidens, constantly preyed upon by lascivious men. Bad sex, drunken sex and regretted sex are being redefined as sexual violence – provided the accuser is female. This is fainting-couch feminism, not liberation.”

Ashley Armitage / Refinery29 for Getty Images

Not all students are on board with the idea of introducing real-life consent education though; a poll by student news site The Tab found only 39% of students felt the classes were necessary.

One former student, George Lawlor, from the University of Warwick went so far as to protest against the classes during his Fresher’s Week by holding up a sign proclaiming, ‘This is not what a rapist looks like.’ His subsequent piece, ‘Why I Don’t Need Consent Lessons’, argued, “Self-appointed teachers of consent: get off your fucking high horse. I don’t need your help to understand basic human interaction.” Understandably, it caused a media shitstorm.

“The classes are too little, too late for people who’ve got to university age and still don’t know the difference between right and wrong,” he tells me. “I don’t want to sound like I’m victim-blaming or excusing rape in any way – rape is always the fault of the rapist – but a woman in that scenario has to say something."

“While that can be difficult to do, it’s like locking your door at night; if you’re burgled it’s not your fault, but that doesn’t mean you couldn't have taken preventative measures. Maybe classes ought to teach how to say no, rather than how not to rape.” I massage my temples after putting the phone down.

Where next?

So, what happened when I decided to give the contract a test-run with Alex? I bottled it. The truth is, while seriously re-examining my sexual history by writing this piece (something I never would’ve imagined when I took on the assignment), I quickly realised a contract is not the solution to avoiding an distressing situation.

A piece of paper cannot protect you. What it can do is spark a conversation, one I hope students who are lucky enough to attend a consent class, will be informed and confident enough to have in future anyway.

Mainly, the classes gave me an important reminder: your body doesn’t owe anyone a damn thing, regardless of whether they’re someone you’ve invited over sober or drunk, someone you've shagged a thousand times before or someone with whom you've spent an entire night flirting. If you consent to one act, you haven’t given automatic consent to another. Change your mind whenever the fuck you like, it’s your god-given right.

So, I stopped stalling. What's the point in scrabbling around for a Biro, or asking Alex to a sign the boner-killing elephant tucked away in my bag, when I’ve clearly consented through my body language? And he’s done the same through his. That is more than enough – no signature necessary.

This article originally appeared in the January 2016 issue of Cosmopolitan UK, however the statistics shown here have been updated to reflect newer research where possible. *Names have been changed.

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